Don’t worry too much about this story. I’m sure Barack Obama would have waited for Japan's apology for Pearl Harbor, the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, the treatment of American POWs …

The cable indicates the Japanese government was then effectively discouraging Obama from visiting Hiroshima despite growing expectations over it following his call for a world free from nuclear weapons in a speech in Prague in April 2009.

The cable, dated Sept. 3, 2009, and sent to U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton, reported Japan’s then Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka telling Ambassador John Roos on Aug. 28 that antinuclear groups would speculate over whether the president would visit Hiroshima in light of his Prague speech on nuclear nonproliferation.

“He underscored, however, that both governments must temper the public’s expectations on such issues, as the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a ‘non-starter’,” said the cable.

The most fascinating part of this was the discouragement given by the Japanese Vice Foreign Minister. Presumably, a Japanese government that got an American President to bow to their national sense of victimhood from the consequences of launching a brutal war of conquest in the 1930s — bowing in the rhetorical sense, of course — would have acquired a huge amount of political goodwill. The government in Tokyo at that time certainly needed a political boost.

Why not let Obama apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then? For one thing, Japan understands better than most that they rely on the American nuclear umbrella for their safety — and not so much from China but from North Korea. At some point, Japan has to decide whether to adopt its own nuclear deterrent to push Kim Jong-il into real negotiations. The last thing they need is an American President using Hiroshima as a platform for unilateral disarmament while China bristles with nukes and the DPRK keeps testing more of its home-grown nuclear devices, which they are apparently preparing to do again.

Obama wisely took Yabunaka’s advice and decided not to address the issue at all. The fact that the Japanese had to tell Obama to curtail his 2009 apology tour is both ironic and, well, appalling.

For one thing, Japan understands better than most that they rely on the American nuclear umbrella for their safety ...

I think Japan also understands better than most that Little Boy and Fat Man saved the lives of TENS OF MILLIONS of their citizens.

Absent the surrender, ensuing months leading to the invasion would have seen the 20th Air Force overhead every night until even the smallest hamlet was burned to the ground, and the US Navy had the country absolutely blockaded, and even before the invasion, millions of Japanese would have starved or burned to death.

And that would have been just the warmup to the absolute havoc the invasion itself would have wreaked.

8
posted on 10/12/2011 12:07:42 PM PDT
by DuncanWaring
(The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)

Obama is no longer our top concern. Mitt Romney is the number one enemy of conservatives right now. Obama isnt running in the Republican primary.
____________________

No Obama is the number one problem. Mitt, with all his faults, is light years better than Obama. It’s not even close. Mitt built and ran a successful business. He would not bow to a foreign head of state. He would appoint business friendly judges to the federal bench, not ones approved by trial lawyers.

For the record, Mitt is not my choice in the primary, but remember the 11th commandment — or was Reagan a RINO too?

This is insane. Work hard for whomever you like to win the Republican nomination, but vote for whoever does win it, even if that's Romney. If conservatives vote for a third candidate, or don't vote at all, Obama will win another term. And, if Obama is reelected, our country as we know it will not survive. I personally would love to see a Gingrich/Cain ticket, but I'll vote for Romney/whomever if that is who gets the nomination.

Nothing you write is inaccurate....but that is one gigantic degree of difference between Romney and Obama.

Again, in terms of appointing judges, providing a friendlier business climate, and projecting a stronger foreign policy message (granted, given Zero’s propensity to bow to foreign heads of state, that ain’t hard) Romney is light years ahead of Zero.

By the way...most business friendly judges also get the cultural questions right too. So there’s that.

I suspect that you and I will vote for the same primary candidate. I just think that 4 more years of Obama is a non-starter — I would rather have someone who ran a successful business (Cain or Romney)in the White House, than a community organizer.

You are deluding yourself if you think that Romney will provide a better business climate. Between Obamneycare and AGW, the business climate will never recover.

Those are the two biggest economy killers we have going right now, and Mitt’s plan is no different than Obama’s. It doesn’t matter how experienced Romney is if he thinks that he can play king maker and pick the winners and losers like Obama has been doing.

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